FBI OFFERS $5M REWARD FOR CAPTURE OF S.D. MAN LINKED TO TERRORIST GROUP

The FBI has offered a $5 million reward for information that helps authorities capture two reputed members of the Somali-based al-Shabaab terrorist group, including a man from San Diego.

The reward offer is the latest effort to try to catch Jehan Serwan Mostafa, a San Diego man who was indicted in federal court here in 2009 on charges of conspiracy and providing material support to a terrorist organization.

Another $5 million reward was offered for information on a second American, Omar Shafik Hammami of Alabama.

The FBI said Mostafa, who also uses the nicknames “Ahmed,” “Emir Anwar,” and “Anwar,” left the U.S. for Somalia in 2005 to join al-Shabaab, which is aligned with al-Qaeda.

Mostafa is a leader of foreign fighter troops for al-Shabaab and serves as a media expert. He’s a former University of California San Diego student who studied economics and once worked at an auto-parts store on El Cajon Boulevard.

Hammami served with Mostafa and was used to recruit English-speaking youths to the group, the FBI said in a news release.

The rewards come just a month after four Somali immigrants were convicted in federal court in San Diego for providing money and other support to al-Shabaab. Three of the four men were from San Diego.

They are scheduled to be sentenced in May and each face 15 years or more in prison.

Police officers caught three teenagers loading property from the Avenida Altamira house into a stolen vehicle, Wedge said.

The girl called 911 abut 1 p.m. Tuesday, when she said someone knocked on her door, then opened a window to the house. She heard the intruders come inside, so she grabbed her phone and hid in an upstairs closet.

“I pulled clothes in front to hide behind,” the girl, a high school junior, said in a phone interview Wednesday night.

At one point, one of the burglars entered the closet. She was afraid he would see her protruding feet, but he did not.

She said the dispatcher told her to stay quiet and calm. Help was on the way.

“I just didn’t know what to think,” she said. “I thought it was a bad dream and I was going to wake up.”

Two 17-year-old boys and 18-year-old Robin Sadik, of El Cajon, were arrested on suspicion of burglary.